In His Place
by Gumnut
Summary: One brother maimed, another not what he seems. AU, Wing!fic Virgil/Kayo, Marks Series
1. In his place (part 1)

Title: In his place

Marks series

Author: Gumnut

24 May 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: "It was supposed to be me!"

Word count: 1373

Spoilers & warnings: Virgil/Kayo, Wing!fic, not my usual fare.

Timeline: TBA

Author's note: I had a nasty migraine this morning and it blew my day out of the water. I'm mostly better now, but ever so tired. So, tonight you get weird fic rather than any continuation of any of my WIPs. This is what it is, which is odd. I hope you enjoy it anyway ::hugs::

There will likely be more of this from me, but in the meantime the-lady-razorsharp has written a fic in this universe :D Go read it after this one :D

Disclaimer: Mine? You've got to be kidding. Money? Don't have any, don't bother.

-o-o-o-

The wind was brisk as she followed him up the stairs. She knew he and his brother had hewn those steps out of the basalt themselves, John ever wanting the highest point for himself and Virgil too kind to deny him his help.

So, it was John who usually took the steps, his little astronomical hideaway hidden in the top-most rocks, a platform equally as hand hewn as the steps to his make-do observatory. But today it was Virgil, bare-chested and angry, his boots solid on the rock, his pace aggravated.

She didn't blame him. John did what he did to save his brother, but it still hurt. Virgil was the calmest of them all. But not today. Kay was holding it together only because she knew he wasn't. She had to be strong for him. Had to keep him safe. Had to face his grief when he couldn't face it himself.

He didn't speak. He didn't even look at her. He had fled the building as Scott had given them the diagnosis.

That John had saved Virgil's life.

And paid the price.

It was devastating. Kay held back her own reaction, strangling it in her throat, and had run after him.

It wasn't his fault. He had done his best. Her uncle was cruel and heartless and had taken the opportunity to pick the wings off a fly.

John had just preferred it wasn't Virgil, and had taken his brother's place.

It had been surprising, yet not. She knew all her brothers would do anything for each other. Anything for her, their family. She would do the same. But the red haired, pale and nerdy John, the quiet one, the least physical of them all, had been able to shove his biggest brother out of the way. Pure adrenalin. Pure love.

Virgil had screamed.

A sound she never wanted to hear again.

But the sound torn from John...

She shivered in the wind, her halter-neck top insufficient against the cold.

She followed him up here. His thoughts so obviously of his brother and what he had lost. He was shirtless and the evening sun, dipping below gathering cloud, cast him in gold. Skin marred by pale scars stretched over taut hard-earned muscle, rippling as he climbed the last of the stairs. That same sun caught the lines of his mark, sparkling the dark etchings into iridescence.

His mark was truly a beautiful one. A reflection of the man within. It was as large in comparison as he. Fine, dark lines sketched over his shoulders, cascading over his biceps and down the small of his back. Moving as he moved. Leaving his back more black than not, yet shimmering in the light.

And more a reminder of John's sacrifice than anything else.

"Kay, I need to be alone."

"No, you don't." She swallowed. "If you don't want me here, you can have Scott, but we are not leaving you by yourself."

"Kay." And with her name he turned to face her, the brown of his eyes flickering in the same light as his skin, golden and aflame. Dark stubble shadowed his cheeks as much as the circles under his eyes. Butterfly bandages held part of his forehead together and exhaustion skulked under his anger.

"It wasn't your fault." She took the matter by the horns. He could wallow in his grief and self blame, but she wouldn't let him do himself damage because of it. "The only person to blame in this is the Hood." She swallowed and ignored the implications of that and how it related to her own guilt. Virgil was the important factor here, not her. "He was the one who hurt John. Not you."

"It was supposed to be me!"

And there it was, the guilt.

"It wasn't supposed to be anyone, Virgil! You were there to save people, and you did."

He stared at her a moment, before turning away and resuming his climb up the stairs.

"Virgil!"

He didn't stop and she hurried after him. "Virgil!"

He made it to the platform well before she did, his stride and his thigh muscles used to his advantage and fuelled by anger. But once he got there, he stopped.

She almost collided with his back, his mark inches from her eyes, sparkling. A step back, and she walked around him, only to find his expression lost, as if he had no idea why he had come all the way up here.

"Virgil?"

He glanced at her as if snapped from a trance, but then his eyes landed on the platform itself, tracking over telescope supports, notations vandalised into the basalt, an abandoned stylus that had rolled into a corner, and his face crumpled.

She couldn't help but reach for him, her fingers brushing against that dark stubble. "He's alive, love. He will go on."

"But how?"

"Brains is working on it. He will find a solution."

Virgil's mouth opened, but whatever words he had wanted to utter were lost as more grief flickered over his expression and he, once again, turned away.

The wind grabbed coldly at his hair, tossing it about and, for a moment, he was silhouetted by the setting sun.

She heard his gasp, his groan, and knew what he was doing. "Virgil, don't!"

He didn't listen.

His mark lifted from his skin, its darkness forming sharp relief as the fine lines of feathers rose and were caught by the breeze. Another gasp, a whine of pain and his beautiful wings unfolded, their deep, shimmering black wider than the platform itself.

The action brought him to his knees.

Because he wasn't recovered. Because he had almost been as wounded as his brother. But most of all, because he was an idiot.

"You idiot. You're not supposed to lift for another two weeks." She threw herself down beside him, reaching for his shoulders, doing her best to not touch his feathers, not touch his injured wing, but reach the man regardless.

He lifted one pinion so it brushed against her forearm, its feathers stiff, but soft. "Kay."

The single syllable of her name contained so much.

She scrabbled across the stone, sliding beneath his uninjured wing, not caring for the scratch against her own back or the dirt in her hair. She got herself into his personal space, up front, and took his head in her hands.

No words. She simply kissed his forehead, his cheek, a brush of her lips against his, and she drew him close, drew his head down to her shoulder and held him.

The great expanse of his wings arched and flapped once, an exhaled breath hot against her bare shoulder, he moaned, and a single sob escaped. His arms wrapped around her, his sheer mass enveloping her slight frame.

His left wing curled to encircle them both. His right could not.

"Love, let them go. You're hurting yourself."

"I deserve to hurt."

"You do not!"

"John-"

"John survived! John loves you and would be ripping you a new one if he knew what you are doing to yourself. Let them go."

"I-"

The sun dipped below the horizon and the shadows suddenly became deeper. He shivered in her grasp. There were no stars tonight. Cloud obscured everything.

Rather appropriate since the starmaster wasn't here and wouldn't be for some time.

The dark came in quickly and the rain, when it came, was equally appropriate for her mood. The first drops touched feathers almost silently.

"Love, please let them go."

She was stroking his hair.

His feathers rustled softly as he folded them against his back. His right wing folded slowly and he trembled under her touch. "Let them go." Whispered into his ear.

He shuddered, let out a sigh and the feathered shadows, deeper than the night around them, faded back into his skin. His mark shone briefly and was taken by the darkness.

Rain began hitting her face.

He still held her, almost clung to her, his forehead on her shoulder.

She let the rain come. Perhaps it was with the hope that it could wash it all away.

The grief. The pain. And the memory of their brother and his beautiful white wingspan being torn from his body.

-o-o-o-


	2. Desperate Reparations (part 3)

Title: Desperate Reparations

Marks series

Author: Gumnut

25 May 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: Fingers stabbed at dark, dank hair. "In here. He's in here." The fingers shifted to Virgil's bare chest and bashed at his breastbone. "And here. And Scott, he hurts so much."

Word count: 1165

Spoilers & warnings: Virgil/Kayo, Wing!fic, not my usual fare.

Timeline: TBA

Author's note: This is part three. I wrote part one, Lady Razorsharp wrote part two - you can find it on her profile – 'Lost wings'. This is part three. They are all standalone fics, kinda, but interconnected. I hope you enjoy this blatant self indulgence.

Disclaimer: Mine? You've got to be kidding. Money? Don't have any, don't bother.

-o-o-o-

Virgil disappeared into his workshop.

Scott was caught up with attending to John, but Kay tried to follow her lover and was expelled.

Not in so many words or even gestures, but he wasn't talking. His entire focus narrowed in on his project and everything else was ignored. The only person he would speak to was Brains, and that was in a consultative capacity. He was polite, but curt, sharp in his need for information and for what little he said, he let little out.

Grandma stepped in when Kay failed, but with even less success. The man was driven and he was driving himself into the ground. Grandma tried to get him to eat, but he would only nibble, distracted by the tools in his hands, food left cold and discarded.

While John slowly healed, Virgil pushed himself to the edge.

-o-o-o-

Scott was eventually cornered by Kay and his grandmother, and a few choice words sent him down to the hangers to drag his brother out.

What he found there broke his heart.

Virgil had rearranged and repurposed his workshop for one thing and one thing alone. A huge table spanned the large room's entire length and on it were feathers.

Hundreds of them.

Each placed precisely in order, laid out to create a massive, pale silver, pair of wings.

For a moment, Scott stood there in awe. The craftsmanship was stunning. Each feather had the finest detail, enough to be the real thing.

Reaching out to touch one of the flight feathers, his fingers brushed an edge. Sudden pain was the immediate result. He yanked his hand back and found fine lacerations slashed through his fingerprints.

The feathers were finely crafted metal and razor sharp.

A breeze from Thunderbird Two's hangar stirred them and he hurried to shut the door.

The room fell into total silence.

The unassembled wings were the only statement in the room.

Until he heard a groan from the doorway at the far end. It was followed by a gasp.

What?

Several quick strides had him through the door and into Virgil's office only to find the room full of black feathers, his brother's wingspan extended as far as it could in the smaller room. Virgil was leaning against his desk, his eyes closed, a single black feather in his hand.

The quill of the feather was red with blood.

"What the hell are you doing?!"

His brother startled, the feather falling from his fingers. It left a red smear on the linoleum where it landed. "Scott? What?"

Virgil appeared almost dazed, his face drawn and pale.

Scott stepped closer, but his brother bent to retrieve the feather on the floor and Scott found himself dodging black flight feathers. "Virgil!"

"What?"

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" The statement was defiance itself, but it was said with a tremor and his brother's baritone was barely there. He was fumbling with the feather, placing it inside a machine. Closing the lid, Virgil hit a combination of buttons and the feather was enveloped in light.

Scott frowned, recalling the silver feathers behind him. "Are you pulling your own feathers to make new?"

"Some of them. Need the data."

The statement was simple and cast off with little care, but staring at his brother's wings he could suddenly see some crucial gaps. "My god."

"Don't worry. They'll grow back."

"Virgil-" He reached out and his fingers inadvertently encountered stiff primaries. The wing under his hand flinched hard and folded away from him, the engineer stumbling as his weight shifted. The pain on his face was plain to see.

Scott's throat grew tight. "What have you done?"

"What I had to do." With a sharp grimace and a grunt, Virgil folded his wings awkwardly and let them go. Black shifted into his skin, his mark wrapping around his now bare back and biceps.

Scott made it to his brother's side just as his legs gave out.

Virgil swore as he folded, struggling to pull himself back up, his grip on the edge of the desk white knuckled. Scott grabbed his hand and wrenched it from its hold, forcing Virgil's weight into his arms and lowering him to sit on the floor.

His hand brushed across his brother's back and came back smeared red.

A panicked examination of the man's mark revealed the damage that had been done. Crucial lines were sketched in red instead of black, some were missing, and the outline of his right forewing was blurred, the skin inflamed.

"Why?" The word was forced from him in horror.

"Because I have to." Virgil attempted to climb to his feet.

Scott held him down. Easily.

"Why?!"

Finally, Virgil turned to look at him, brown eyes red rimmed, voice barely a whisper.

"Because I can hear him"

A blink. "Hear him?"

Virgil's head dropped. "He's hurting so much. It's in my bones. I have to fix this. Make it better. Help him." He made another attempt to get up. Scott just held him tighter.

"How can you hear him? John's in the infirmary. You're down here. Not possible."

Fingers stabbed at dark, dank hair. "In here. He's in here." The fingers shifted to Virgil's bare chest and bashed at his breastbone. "And here. And Scott, he hurts so much." His face crumpled, and an incoherent sound of pain passed his lips before Virgil frowned and once again attempted to get up.

"Stay down."

"I have to-"

"Stay down!" It was rare that Scott could out-muscle his younger brother. The fact he was having little trouble doing it now was setting off more and more alarm bells.

A stab at his comms. "Kayo, Gordon. Meet me in Virgil's workshop. Bring a medkit and a stretcher."

Virgil struggled against his arms again, but he refused to let him go. By the time Kayo burst into the room, Virgil was reduced to hoarse expletives.

"What happened?"

Scott's lips thinned and, as Gordon skidded through the door, a few choice words sketched out exactly what Virgil had been doing to himself.

Kayo froze for a whole second of obvious horror before she was examining her lover's back and spitting her own string of expletives, her worry blatant.

Virgil wilted in his arms.

Gordon's response was strange.

He clammed up, simply moving to his brother's side and placing his hand on a bare patch of shoulder. Brown eyes met brown eyes and something passed between them before Virgil looked down and away.

Gordon's fingers squeezed gently.

Virgil did as he was told after that. Scott and Gordon bundled him onto a hover stretcher and the man curled up on his side, his gaze distant and sad.

Gordon and Kayo led the stretcher out of the room and for a moment Scott was left there by himself.

His eyes landed on a handful of black feathers discarded on the counter.

A swallow that hurt and he strode from the room, hurrying to catch up.

-o-o-o-


	3. In Need (part 5)

Title: In Need

Part Five of In His Stead

Marks series

Author: Gumnut

26 - 29 May 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: "Why do you do this to yourself?"

Word count: 2953

Spoilers & warnings: Virgil/Kayo, Wing!fic, not my usual fare.

Timeline: TBA

Author's note: This is part five. LadyRazorsharp and I are writing this series together. You can find the entirety of the story on Ao3 in order under both our profiles. This one explains a bit more. Thank you all for your wonderful support in this venture of ours. We hope you are enjoying it as much as we're enjoying writing it :D

Disclaimer: Mine? You've got to be kidding. Money? Don't have any, don't bother.

-o-o-o-

Alan was running out of brothers.

He returned to John with some breakfast only to find the tension in the room had skyrocketed. John had tears in his eyes, and, oh my god, so did Scott. What the hell?

Something was wrong.

He opened his mouth to ask, but the expression on his eldest brother's face had him shutting it again.

The youngest was always the protected one. He knew when he wasn't wanted.

A soft word to John, a brush of fingers against his arm, a glance a Scott and he left.

Perhaps he should go to Virgil. His second eldest brother had always had an ear for him, a kind word of encouragement...

But Virgil had disappeared into his workshop a week ago. Alan had attempted to see him several times, but the man was obsessing over something and didn't want to talk. To anyone. Alan had even seen Grandma leaving the workshop despondent. Kayo was volatile and worth hiding from if he valued his life. Brains was the only person who managed to hold a conversation with Virgil, but that appeared to be in another language, the engineering concepts were so far above him.

Everything was out of whack, off kilter. IR was barely functioning with two operatives down and everyone was hurting.

Including Alan.

After all, one brother with limbs missing and almost dead from blood loss, and another brother broken in more ways than one.

The only brother left was Gordon.

And god, he needed to talk to him.

Normally, Gordon was his go-to anyway. He went to all his brothers for various things, but Gordon was closest in age and they had always been a pair. So yes, Gordon was most often his confidant and he didn't hesitate to approach the aquanaut for help.

Except this time, he couldn't be found.

Tracy Island was under a cloud bank of grief and anxiety. The whole house was steeped in it and this morning the weather was echoing the depression by providing a thick sea fog that obscured everything.

If a brother wanted to hide, it would be easy.

Alan had scoured the house, with no trace of his next eldest brother anywhere. The hangars were next, but module four was empty and, with the exception of Virgil's workshop, there was no indication that any brother had been down here for days.

That left the beach. If Gordon was worried, he would seek out the ocean. Of course, there was the chance he was in the ocean, but Alan had hope that he hadn't swum off to wherever it was he ended up on his ocean forays.

He took a guess and headed out to one of his brother's favourite spots - a rocky beach directly opposite Mateo. It had an array of rock pools always full of life. Gordon had even created a few artificial pools of his own for study purposes. Alan had secretly named it Bay de Gordo. Gordon called it Butt Beach for reasons only known to Gordon.

The fog swirled around him as he made his way past the palm trees and around the bluff. Visibility was minimal and if he hadn't known the island as well as he did, he could have stumbled himself an injury. It was ghostly. Jagged rock appeared to emerge from the mist and there was no wind. The whole island appeared to be holding its breath.

As the water came into view, Alan let out a breath as a humanoid shape was sketched out in the gloom. Iconically, his brother was decked out in only his swimwear, standing on half-submerged rocks in the lagoon.

Staring out to sea.

"Gordon?"

His brother didn't respond. He was focussed on the hidden horizon.

"Gordon?"

Alan put his foot onto the first of the rocks and stepping-stoned his way out to the silent figure.

"Gordon!"

The aquanaut startled. "Alan? What the hell?"

"I've been calling you."

"Oh. What do you want?"

Alan frowned. "You okay?"

"Fine."

"Sure."

"What do you want, Alan?"

He fought the urge to take a step back. "To talk."

"About what?"

"Uh, stuff?"

His brother looked away for a moment, his eyes wandering to the lack of horizon again. A sigh and Gordon ran a hand across his face and into his hair. "Sorry, Allie. This sucks."

Alan let his shoulders drop. "No kidding."

Nothing was said for a few minutes, both brothers thinking. But Alan needed to talk. He had to.

"Gordon, why is Scott crying?"

The aquanaut's head shot up. "Crying? Scott's crying?"

"Kinda? He had tears in his eyes. John, too."

A moment of decision in his eyes and Gordon's whole posture slumped. "It's Virgil."

"What?"

"Scott found him pulling out his own feathers attempting to make new ones for John."

"What?! Why?!"

"Something about needing data. There are gaps in his mark and he was bleeding. Kayo was livid. She and Scott have him bailed up in the infirmary."

"He was hurting himself? On purpose?" Something inside Alan twisted in pain.

"He said it was the only way. Wants to continue. Needs to pull out more."

Alan stared at his brother. Gordon obviously wasn't taking this any better than Alan. His lips were thin enough to be bloodless.

But then Alan thought of John. Of his mangled mark and those two horrible gouges in his back. He thought of his own golden span, as blond as his hair, catching the sun as he flew ever so fast over the ocean. To have that torn from him. To never soar to those heights again.

He looked down at his feet. "I can understand that."

Gordon was staring. He could feel those russet-brown eyes on him. Out of all five brothers, Gordon would be least likely to understand the joy of flying with only wings for support as he had none of his own.

"Gordon, wouldn't you do almost anything to help John?"

Voice quiet. "Almost."

"Then you can't begrudge Virgil the attempt."

"I don't."

Alan frowned. "What?"

"I don't." An indrawn hiss between teeth. "Allie, I need to do some laps."

"Gordon, can't we just talk about this a bit?"

"I-" Gordon was obviously caught between his need for the sea and Alan's need for him. "Can you give me half an hour? I just need...the water."

"Okay." Alan swallowed. "I'll wait for you here."

"Thanks, Alan." He reached out and caught Alan's shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze, before turning back towards the sea. The unique mark on his brother's back shimmered grey and silver, the lines shifting and reforming shape in the foggy gloom.

There were no feather lines on Gordon's back. Gordon was different from all his brothers. His mark was not static. It shifted with mood and need and want. Today it shifted into a complex wide diamond shape with a thin tail trailing down his back into his swimwear.

And unlike his brothers, when he activated his mark, the mark did not lift from his skin, it sunk into it. The lines sculpting his body, absorbing the human and creating the form chosen.

Today, his mark shone as the aquanaut jumped from stone to stone, gathering momentum. On the last rock, he leapt into the air and, in a swirl of fog, shifted into an eagle ray, diving into the water and disappearing beneath the waves.

Gordon's transformations never left Alan without a shiver and a wonder of exactly how it felt.

And if he would ever see his brother again.

-o-o-o-

Virgil woke slowly, more slowly than usual and once enough neurons had fired in the right sequence, he recognised the remains of sedation.

Scott.

Damnit.

Rolling onto his back reminded him exactly why Scott might have seen knocking him out a necessary solution. Pain shot up and down his mark and he was forced to roll back onto his stomach.

Ow.

There had been yelling. Scott had been furious. But it was scared furious, not anger. He had terrified his brother.

He sighed as yet another wave of guilt washed over him. A cough, a grimace and he closed his eyes against the images that wouldn't stop haunting him.

A beach off eastern Australia on the way back from a successful mission. It had been unusual to have John and Kay with him instead of Gordon and Alan. But change could be as good as a holiday and they had a few moments so under the pretence of grabbing a few extra rays of sunshine for John, they had set Thunderbird Two down on the beach and taken a moment for a breather.

John was down from TB5 for a break and it had been great to have his little brother along for the ride. Kay had been an extra pleasure and despite the seriousness of a rescue, they had taken those moments to bond a little and freshen up a few of John's land-based skills. The beach on the way home had just been a bonus.

Some bonus.

Ten minutes after they had landed, a ship had appeared in the sky, Alan had started yelling in their ears and suddenly there were falling children.

Children. The bastard had thrown children off his ship and watched them fall. All to get the two Tracy boys to do exactly what they did.

Virgil didn't even think. He was in lift, his mark phasing through his uniform within seconds, wings spreading, his boots tossing up sand as he took a running leap into the air.

John was only a second behind him.

Two children, two rescuers. It was simply planned, but effective. Virgil caught the little boy, John a little girl. Kay had boarded TB2, opening and raising the overhead hatch. Virgil had back-winged, killing off his descent velocity enough to hand the child to Kay, before regaining altitude to help John.

Because behind them was an ominous buzzing. John had his hands full with the little girl and three flying mechanical creatures with outstretched claws were narrowing in on him.

Again, Virgil didn't think.

Perhaps he should have. It might have changed the outcome.

He threw himself between John and the mechas, his laser deployed, slicing one from the sky almost immediately.

"Virgil Tracy, is it?" On loudspeaker from flying mechanical bugs, it was creepy enough to make him pause. "You'll do nicely."

The two remaining mechas suddenly became four and Virgil became seriously outnumbered. Kay was yelling at him over comms that the children were safe. He needed to return to Thunderbird Two.

Easier said than done. He took another one out with his laser, but Virgil couldn't hover and the bugs had greater manoeuvrability than he.

One clamped onto his right wing and yanked. The pain was blinding. The world spun as he lost altitude and began to fall, mecha grinding bone against metal.

But the sun shone off his brother's glorious white wings. John's hands caught him, those wings a white blur of muscle and intent, working ever so hard to stop his spin. John's hands on his right pinion, untangling the bug's claw from Virgil's wing and flinging it away.

The other two mechas snatching his brother from behind, claws digging into white feathers.

Laughter over the loudspeakers.

His own hoarse yell and then his scream as the bug grabbed his wing again and simply broke it. Discarding both him and his wing, it joined the attack on his brother.

No!

That last image of John caught in all those claws; red flecking white as he struggled.

He couldn't reach his little brother. Couldn't save him. His wings couldn't support him. He was falling. The planet up and hit him, ripping conscious thought from his mind.

Kay had to tell him what happened next. Apparently, Thunderbird One had torn onto the scene. It was Scott who caught John as he fell, discarded by the bugs as they buzzed off, precious feathers in their grip. Both John and Virgil had been bundled onto TB2 and there had been a mad dash for Tracy Island.

Virgil had woken in this very room to find out his little brother had had his wings torn from his body and would never fly again.

Scott had tears in his eyes.

Scott.

Crying.

Virgil scrunched his eyes shut and had to force the breath he was holding from his body.

His back complained.

He had lain in this bed as long as he could, but eventually he had fled. Kay had followed and he found himself climbing the stairs to John's observatory. Perhaps seeing John himself would have been more sensible, but he couldn't face his brother, unconscious or not.

He still hadn't seen the astronaut.

How could he face him after such failure?

Virgil adored his brothers, all four of them, but there was something connecting John, Gordon and himself, the middle three. There always had been. He knew the moment Gordon was born. He knew when the bullies cornered John in school - the bullies regretted it immediately. He knew when they were injured or ill. There was something connecting them, something keeping them safe.

But from the moment he had awoken in this room, it had been different.

John was in pain.

John was unconscious, but he was in pain.

At first, Virgil had been unable to get out of bed, so it had been Kay and Scott reassuring him that John was recovering, that he was okay.

But Virgil could feel him. He wasn't okay.

It was as if ripping off his brother's wings had ripped open their connection. Virgil could feel that shredded mark as if it was his own. He found himself lifting his wingspan just to reassure himself he still could.

And the emotion. He found himself upset at the slightest thing. There was anger. There was sadness, regret and loss. It was as if he was running the course of grief, but not of his own. He found it difficult to control, difficult to keep calm.

And John was still unconscious.

Confused and caught up in his own response, he told no one. Instead he channelled it. John had lost his wings. John need new wings. It became as simple as that.

Virgil had an artist's hands and an engineer's mind. He would make his little brother wings. Not wings to replace his own, but wings that could never be torn from him again.

The concept lit a spark and Virgil made it happen.

A light metal-polymer composite laced with cahelium, finely sculpted by laser. He built pinions large enough to support his brother's weight and strong enough to fight a hurricane. Artificial muscles supported by an electronic nerve fibre network that on consultation with Brains could interface with his brother's nervous system.

Brains was working on the most integral component. On lift, their wings phased from an otherspace to their space. They were contained within the mark and were summoned on lift. Brains had found a way to access that otherspace, to manipulate objects within it. To call for the lift.

This is what the Hood had been after. Virgil had no doubt it was. How he had found out about it, the engineer did not know, but the bastard knew and he wanted it.

There was no word in existence that could express the hate Virgil felt for that man. He had taken his father and he had hurt his brother so badly.

The room around him blurred and Virgil had to take a moment to control himself.

A blink. A frown.

John was awake.

His brother wasn't very far away. Just in the room next door. It was like he was hearing an echo of his brother's thoughts. No words, no pictures, just expression.

He knew the moment he stumbled out of bed and caught sight of the damage that had been done. The emotion washed over Virgil and his breath caught.

And he heard John call his broken feathers to lift.

Virgil gasped. God, it hurt, but the echo was suddenly overwhelmed by his own body's pain as his black feathers were called forth.

His mark seared hot as his span manifested. His right wing attempted to unfold and the broken bone screamed at him. It had been healing, but he had been pulling feathers in order to digitally print crucial parts of his creation and it had been exacerbated. The medic in his head feared an infection. The agony at this unexpected stretch almost confirmed it.

Abruptly John aborted his lift, the call faded, and his sea of emotion calmed somewhat.

Eight metres of ink black wingspan collapsed to the floor either side of his bed and Virgil whimpered.

John had called his feathers. How? He let out a breath and blinked tears from his eyes.

Ow.

"Virgil!"

Oh shit. Kay.

She was standing in the doorway glaring at his limp wings. "You can't keep lifting like this! You need to rest to heal."

Virgil swallowed, tensed, and folded his span inch by painful inch. His eyes were scrunched shut by the time they were properly retracted. A gasp and he let them go.

His mark flared hot as his feathers settled.

He was panting. There were tears in his eyes again and he blinked them madly away.

A hand on his cheek, gentle, brushing at his stubble.

"I'm sorry." His voice came out harsh. He blinked again.

"Why do you do this to yourself?"

He opened his mouth to answer and couldn't. Another swallow and he found a rough whisper. "I don't know."

His back ached as pushed himself up and reached for her, but it was worth it to wrap his arms around her. He buried his face in her neck and clung.

-o-o-o-


End file.
